


epilogue

by MayWilder



Series: the gift of you [10]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Irondad, Parent Pepper Potts, Pepper is human and therefore flawed, adopted family, family fic, short fic, wedding fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:49:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23314192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayWilder/pseuds/MayWilder
Summary: Five years after adopting Peter Parker, Pepper makes the adjustment of seeing him be married.It's an ending, of sorts, and a beginning of another.
Relationships: Harley Keener & Pepper Potts, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts, Peter Parker & Pepper Potts & Tony Stark
Series: the gift of you [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1360237
Comments: 41
Kudos: 261





	epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> In May of last year, I started this series with no intention having more than one story about Pepper and Peter, because I felt like there wasn't enough Mom!Pepper. Now, almost a year later, I've written stories about family and love and passion and depression and anxiety. This series means the world to me because it allowed me to explore parts of myself and connect to so many people. Without this story, I never would have found parkner. And without parkner, I never would have met some truly incredible people. This is the final story in the "gift of you" series, and I want to thank every person who read, commented, messaged, beta'ed, and shared. You all mean the world to me and I love you. You're my family. Always.

Pepper knows that Harley and Peter are going to be together forever. Peter looks at the other boy (man, they’re young men now) with so little doubt that Pepper has been waiting for the engagement ring to pop up from one of them. When she carefully asks Peter about it, he tells her they’re waiting for a bit. They’re in separate states and in school, and it's probably not a good time. 

And then. 

And then Harley is kidnapped, Peter saves him, and they get engaged. 

Pepper wants to push, wants to press and ask when they’re going to start planning and what their futures are and what the plan is for living separately...but she can’t. She knows how Peter is about her resistance to the seriousness of their relationship. So, she’s going to respect his boundaries and let him come to her. He’s an adult who can make his own decisions. 

It’s just. 

She wants to interfere. 

But she doesn’t.

She goes to work, she comes home, she asks about classes and how Harley’s doing, and she waits. 

* * *

When she arrives back at the compound after a conference in France, she’s surprised to see Harley standing at the entrance and waiting for her. 

“Harley,” she says, finding a genuine smile on her face. “It’s so good to see you, honey.”

“You too, Pep,” he answers. He gives her a hug that manages to be tight _and_ brief, pulling back sheepishly. Since the incident last summer, he’s been somewhat distant. “Can I take your bags?”

“Of course, thank you,” she says. They walk in what used to be easy silence. Now, it’s Pepper waiting for Harley to say something and Harley fidgeting until they’re no longer alone. Yet another thing she desperately wants to press about, but respectfully waits for. 

“How did the semester end?” she asks, just as Harley blurts out, “I need to know if I actually have your blessing to marry Peter.”

They stop in the hallway, Pepper feeling her shoulders drop. “Oh, Harley.”

“I know you get worried,” Harley starts talking and, suddenly, seems as if he can’t stop. “Since last summer, when he almost died because of me, and since the kidnapping, when he almost really messed up because of me. I know our relationship freaks you out, and you think of what happened to Tony because of Steve and don’t want us to do something like that, but I don’t want to hide how I feel about him from you. And at least you know that, no matter what, I’ll put him first and I’ll love him well and I will spend so much time trying to be what he needs--”

“Harley, Harley,” Pepper says, coming to take his hands. “Honey, please know that I love you, so much. I do want what’s best for Peter, but I want what’s best for you. You two being happy and healthy is all that I care about. I was upset when Peter was hurt, yes, but I was terrified. And was I concerned that Peter was going to break a few international laws? Yes! How could I not be?”

Pepper moves one of her hands to Harley’s shoulders. “But, honey, I love you. So much. And I live in a giant building full of superheroes. I understand that feelings that run between you, and the abilities you have, and I will not apologize for how that makes me nervous. But at the end of the day, my nerves are irrelevant. Because you’re wonderful, Harley. Not only are you everything I could dream of for Peter, but he’s everything I could dream of you. That’s also important to me. Do you understand that?”

Harley nods, tears in his eyes. 

“Oh, Harls.”

“Sorry, I’ve been better and feeling normal, but I just...I love you too, Pep, and I’ve been walking around feeling like there’s this heavy weight on me, thinking you’re still angry with me.”

“No,” she tells him firmly. “Not a bit. Come here, sweetie.”

Harley falls into her arms like all the fight’s left him. They stay like that for some time, Pepper’s hand smoothing down his hair and his face buried in her hair. He feels stronger than he did months ago, a little thicker around the waist and sturdier on his feet. He looks like he’s been eating and sleeping, and it brings her a sense of relief. 

It also gives her the confidence to push forward. 

“But if at all possible, I would really like to have a conversation about school and Spiderman and practicalities.”

Harley laughs. “Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

* * *

“Mom?”

Pepper looks up from her laptop. Peter stands in the doorway of her office, hands in his pockets and looking a little nervous. “Hey, sweetie. You get out of rehearsal early?”

“Yes ma’am,” he tells her. “I um...I wanted to ask you a question. “

It’s a few months after the kidnapping and Peter is graduating from Columbia. Harley has moved back to New York for the summer, deciding to stay on the light course load he’s got going so he’ll take the full four years instead of Peter’s three. Seeing Peter in her office the day before graduation is a little surprising.

“Everything okay?” she asks softly. 

He nods. “Yeah, I just. _So_. I wondered how you would feel if Harley and I got married in a week at the Queen’s botanical gardens at sunset.”

Pepper goes to speak, but she’s got nothing to offer. She’s been waiting to hear an update on their lives, on school, on a wedding, and here it is. 

“I…” Pepper clears her throat. “That’s very soon. Harley is still in school.”

“I know,” Peter says. “But since I’m graduating...well, I applied for graduate school. I’m going to get my master’s at MIT. So we’ll be there for a couple years.”

Pepper looks down at her keyboard. There’s a part of her that’s not surprised, but another part that is. She’s been secretly hoping that the boys would stay in New York. Everything is already so uncertain: being Spider-Man, part of the Avengers...it’s a lot. Her certainty comes from knowing that her son is on the same island as she is, close to her and…

Pepper has only had him for five years. Most women get their children for eighteen, maybe twenty. She hasn’t even known him for ten. Their relationship had a late start, and now she’s supposed to watch him hop states permanently. She’s selfish. She wants to beg him not to go, cry and ask that he stays. 

“Mom?" Peter breaks into her thoughts. 

God, she’s an awful person. Her beautiful boy, looking at her so earnestly, deserves the very best love Pepper has to offer. And being selfish is not the way to love someone. 

“Oh, Peter,” she sniffles, rising from her desk. “Honey! This is so exciting, I’m sorry I’m so emotional!”

Peter grins, cries a little bit, and they hug. For the rest of the day, they talk about dresses and rings and everything in between until it's time to go home. Pepper kisses her son’s forehead and watches him pull into traffic. 

She waits until she gets into her own car to cry. 

* * *

“You look so handsome.” Pepper smooths the collar of Tony’s shirt. “Why are you so impossibly handsome?”

“Life shit on me for the first forty years,” Tony shrugs. “In return, I got my dashing good looks that landed me the most incredible woman on the planet.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I’m not that incredible. _Your_ heart, on the other hand, is so good. You’re so good, Tony, do you know that?”

Her husband's eyebrows furrow. “Pep, what’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

“What kind of role reversal is this where we’re switching personalities?” Tony sasses. When Pepper doesn’t answer, his hands squeeze gently at her waist and his voice drops an octave. “What’s going on?”

She blinks to dispel tears. 

“Tony, I feel... _nasty_ , lately. Jealous of Harley’s time with Peter and how we had him for seven years, and now Harley will have him forever. And I love them both, but he’s my kid. I never wanted any. But then he came and now the thought of putting more distance between us...his priorities are _supposed_ to shift. But I don’t want them to and I feel awful for it.”

“You’re not awful,” Tony assures her. “Listen, honey, Peter...he’s our kid. And for a while, we had to change everything for him, alter our lives. I know we don’t regret it, that’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we created this big space in our lives for him and now he’s going to be leaving it empty. That doesn’t change that he’s still going to be here some way.”

“I don’t want to feel this way, but I do.” Pepper sighs. “And now we’re about to walk him down the aisle and I know, I know this is a good thing. We want him to grow up and branch out. Leave the nest.”

“But when he’s left the nest, there’s a little empty space,” Tony agrees. 

Their foreheads rest together. Pepper presses her hand into Tony’s chest and breathes with him like they used to do, when his panic attacks were bad and this was routine. It’s comfortable, feels like, home, and Pepper knows that Peter has something like this with Harley. 

The future is going to require an adjustment, but they’ve made adjustments before. 

It’ll be okay. 

They can do it again.

“Come on,” she says finally, standing to her full height. “Let’s go watch our son get married.”

* * *

Pepper stands in front of her closest friends and family with a large flute of champagne and tears in her eyes. 

“Seven years ago, I met Peter at our compound,” she says. “I found a bright boy, full of hope and intelligence. He changed my husband, he changed the dynamics of our house, just by being close by. And then he legally became part of our family and the boundaries of our home were pushed. We expanded and adapted physically, but so much more emotionally. I’ve been capable of loving Peter in a way I never wanted or expected. He wormed his way into our hearts and has decided to never leave.

“I say all of this, Harley, because I know you love him. And I know that you know it’s an incredible thing to do so. And I hope you get to spend every moment of your life experiencing it. That Peter’s unconditional love, his passion for life, his clever brain and his compassion...that they all become something you’re used to. You deserve that kind of endless love, Harls. And I look forward to how you officially being a member of this family will push the boundaries of this family and our love even more. It’s a privilege, really, knowing you and experiencing life with you.”

She looks to them both and blows a kiss. “I love you, honey. This gift you’ve been given, with each other...there is nothing like it. Cherish it. Protect it. Nurture it. And _congratulations_.”

"Before I had my child, I thought I knew all the boundaries of myself, that I understood the limits of my heart. It’s extraordinary to have all those limits thrown out, to realize your love is inexhaustible."  
-Uma Thurman


End file.
